The United States has been able to colonize European countries by spending money to keep them secure while also selling them weapons, says an analyst in Virginia.

Keith Preston, the director of AttackTheSystem.com made the remarks while discussing reports that the US has been able to sell billions of dollars in weapons to Europe by spreading fear of an alleged Russian threat.

“The European nations are essentially the military colonies of the United States through NATO,” Preston told Press TV on Sunday. “While those nations are certainly sovereign nations in a political context, on a military level they are heavily dependent on NATO for their military defense.”

Pointing to the small military budgets of NATO members, Preston argued that the without Washington’s contributions to the military alliance European countries would basically have no military defense.

The US has been paying around 23 percent of NATO’s costs annually over the past years. However, the share far exceeds other members of the 28-member alliance once indirect costs are also considered.

The alliance requires the members to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense, something US President Donald Trump says they are not doing.

While the Western alliance’s own military budget approached $1.4 billion last year, overall military spending by the member-states was estimated by the NATO to be around a staggering $921 billion.

According to NATO’s own website, the US is spending more than 3 percent of its GDP for this purpose while countries like Greece and the UK also met the target 2 percent.

France, Turkey, Germany, Italy and Canada are some of the members who have failed to hit the minimum requirement.

It is because of shifting their military expenses onto the US that “Western European nations and now Eastern European nations are able to maintain the large welfare states that they actually have,” Preston continued.

“The United States is happy to absorb all that because what happens is that through selling weapons to the European nations that creates a guaranteed market for the American armaments manufacturers,” he argued.

This happens at the expense of American taxpayers, who are bearing the brunt by basically paying what it costs to keep European countries secure, the analyst said.